


In Life, In Death

by Kivrin



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Background Het, Death, Drabble Sequence, Family, Grief, Hospitals, Loss, Not Beta Read, Survival, War, wwi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 16:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin/pseuds/Kivrin
Summary: Two hospitals fifteen years apart. For the prompt "hospital" fromTwelvetide Drabbles 2017.





	1. 1917

The nurse apologizes for the uneven camp bed, the dripping canvas overhead, the burn of whatever she uses to clean his wounded side. Foyle doesn’t dare to shake his head - he may need that strength to pull her down if he hears the shell his ears keep straining for - but he whispers _all right_ and hopes his eyes convey something of his stunned gratitude. However unsteadily, the bed holds him fully eighteen inches out of mud he can still smell beneath the stench of carbolic acid; the tent is wet but not moldy; the pain means, impossibly, he’s still alive.


	2. 1932

At the door of the side ward a probationer who looks no older than Andrew stands bundling bloody linen into a laundry cart. Andrew balks on the spot; from far away Foyle notes that the boy’s face is white as the wall, his eyes _(her eyes)_ huge and dark as the night. For a moment, silently, they struggle, Andrew’s shoulder like stone under Foyle’s hand, and then Hugh steps forward.

“Come with me, Andrew, let’s find a cup of tea,” he says. “Give your dad and mum a minute.”

A minute isn’t enough. A minute is more than they have.


End file.
